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Introducing e-learning in Kyrgyzstan

The Government of the Kyrgyz Republic developed and approved 'The Program and Plan for Transition of the KR to Sustainable Development for 2013-2017' (Government Decree № 218 dated of April 30, 2013). This Government Program and Plan were endorsed by the Parliament (Jogorku Kenesh) of the Kyrgyz Republic on December 18, 2013 (GPPTSD) and afterwards revised taking into consideration the recent developments and new realities induced by the global financial and economic crises.

Within the Plan, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Kyrgyz Republic is responsible for the development and implementation of E-learning within the national ICT Governance Systems in Kyrgyzstan as one of the nine stakeholders involved in ICT policy design and implementation (The other members are: the President adviser on Science and Innovative technologies , the State Intellectual Property Service of the Kyrgyz Republic, the Ministry of Transport and Communications of the Kyrgyz Republic, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Energy and Industry, the State Agency of Communications under the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic, the National Academy of Science of the Kyrgyz Republic and one representative from the Internet providers association, the private business sector, the NGOs in the field of ICT and civic organizations).

The strategy behind the plan is to grow a sustainable information society provided with an advanced ICT infrastructure, characterized by a high level of computer saturation, able to give internet access in all the territories and to provoke an high-level of computer literacy. For this reason, the modernization of the technological education system and the training of IT high-qualified specialists is a strategic issue and various international donors initiatives has been held with this purpose during the last years as for example a National IT Centre project has been implemented, in order to improve the skills of IT professionals and many training programs have been implemented in Academy of ICT, Kyrgyz- Japan Center for JICA. (KYRGYZ REPUBLIC, ICT ENVIRONMENT, INNOVATION POLICIES & INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, EECA CLUSTER, EAST-HORIZON EU FP7 Project – Grant Agreement No 611063).

In the same context, the agreement on 'Professional education and training in Central Asia I', related to 2010 to 2018 period, has been signed by the Kyrgyz Republic with the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The agreement involves also Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan.

The Second ADB Vocational Education and Skills Development Project has also addressed the improvement of teaching and learning environments including in his plan minor civil works for rehabilitation of workshops, computer class rooms and dormitories in vocational schools, and the procurement of training equipment and furniture required for the newly developed training materials using the CBT methodology. Support to vocational schools will be provided on a competitive basis. It is envisioned that 70% of the support to primary vocational schools will go to areas outside Bishkek and Osh. This share will be confirmed based on the school mapping exercise findings. (Report and Recommendation of the President  to the Board of Directors / Project Number: 38298-023. July 2012, Proposed Loan and Grant for Second Vocational Education and Skills Development Project - Kyrgyz Republic).

For the neighbor countries examples it is also interesting to know that within the Regional Project 'Supporting Competency-Based Teacher Training Reforms to Facilitate ICT-Pedagogy Integration', funded by the Korean Funds-in-Trust (KFIT), the UNESCO Tashkent Office has organized a national workshop in the Tashkent region in January 2015. The initiative was aimed at supporting the ministries of education in defining and developing the required ICT competencies for their teachers in accordance with the national policy vision and goals for ICT in education.

These national standards would guide the development of a comprehensive roadmap that promotes competency-based teacher ICT training programmes in the country where teachers’ development is systematically guided, monitored, assessed, and tracked at policy and institutional levels. In this initiative, UNESCO implement its ICT Competency Framework for Teachers (ICT-CFT) that has been also included within the training resources of this course.

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